SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE AND THE CRUSADES.

[Sidenote: 1880.]

Col. Ingham was well pleased, when his boys and girls clustered round him the next Saturday, to find how many copies of “Marco Polo” they had found in different libraries, and how much of it they had read, in one reading-circle and another. They found in it manifold illustrations of the “Arabian Nights,” which, in its best form,--Lane’s translation,--is a favorite book in our little circle.

They began to understand what Uncle Fritz had meant, when he said that Marco Polo seemed accurate when he described what he saw, and that his exaggerations, or what people called his lies, came in when he was repeating stories which other people had told.

Esther asked him who Mandeville was, of whom he had said the same thing.

“Mandeville was an Englishman,--Sir John Mandeville,--who went to Constantinople, Egypt, Palestine, Armenia, and other countries of Western Asia a little less than two hundred years before Columbus sailed for America. The exact limits of his absence are said to be the years 1322 and 1356. It was as dark a time as there was in the Dark Ages. He was in the military service of one of the Eastern princes, and had a chance to see travellers from all lands, and to hear their stories. People told stories in the East then, just as they do now, and as I sometimes hope they will, one day, do here again.

“For my part, when I am sitting in the rather dingy reading-room of a third-rate inn, in a fourth-rate town, waiting for my train, which is not to come till eleven at night, I should be very glad if a good story-teller would come in and sit down on a mat, and tell me either the story of Sindbad the Sailor or of Hiawatha and the Arrow-maker, or of his adventures in the Rebellion. When he passed his hat round, I should put in my five-cent piece much more willingly than I give it for the Torra-worra Tell-tale, which only gives me in brief the same news which I read in the Big Bow-wow the same morning.

“Well, Sir John Mandeville heard these stories told by story-tellers, just as you may hear them to-day in Cairo or in Damascus. Whether he wrote them down at once, I do not know; but at some time or other he wrote them down, and now the whole is mixed up together,--what he saw himself with what travellers told him and with what story-tellers told him.

“So you may find bits of ‘Arabian Nights’ in Sir John Mandeville.

“There is so much of this that there came to be a time when people thought he had rather lie than to tell the truth.

“Indeed,” said Uncle Fritz, “I can remember that at one time his name was spelled Man-Devil, as if he were quite outside of human nature; but I believe there is now no doubt that this was his real name.”

Esther said she remembered, in Catlin’s “Indians,” that he told of some chiefs who had been taken all through the great cities, that they might understand the power of the whites, and, when they came back, were wholly disgraced and degraded, because they told such large stories that nobody could believe they were true.

Uncle Fritz was well pleased with Esther’s good memory, and said it was just so with Sir John Mandeville.

Bob Edmeston brought the book, which is in a very handy form.[3] In Bohn’s Library, it is included with many other early journeys to Palestine. The young people knew the Antiquarian Library already. And it may be said to other young people, who have a little money to spend for books, that in Bohn’s various “Libraries” they get as much for their money--if they find the book they want in the catalogue--as they can find anywhere.

But the little book did not look as fascinating as the elegant, large pages crowded with illustrations of Marco Polo.

Uncle Fritz told Bob that when he was a man, and had travelled all through Asia, he might edit an edition of Sir John Mandeville, as elegant as Col. Yule’s of Marco Polo.

“You will have to be satisfied now,” said he, “by looking for my pencil-marks. Or turn to the end. See what I have noticed on the last page.”

So they turned to the last page, and found that Uncle Fritz had made an index of the things he liked in the book. This is always a good thing to do,--if the book is your own, of course. They read aloud the headings, and came to “The Lady changed into a Dragon.”

“That is the story in Morris’s ‘Earthly Paradise,’” said Uncle Fritz. “Look a little further.” Esther read on, and he told her to turn back to the book, and read to them, when she found--

HOW ROSES FIRST CAME INTO THE WORLD.

[Sidenote: 1322-56.]

From Hebron we proceed to Bethlehem in half a day, for it is but five miles; and it is a very fair way, by pleasant plains and woods. Bethlehem is a little city, long and narrow and well-walled, and on each side enclosed with good ditches. It was formerly called Ephrata, as Holy Writ says, “Lo, we heard of it at Ephrata.” And towards the east end of the city is a very fair and handsome church, with many towers, pinnacles, and corners, strongly and curiously made, and within are forty-four great and fair pillars of marble; and between the city and the church is the Field _Floridus_,--that is to say, the _field flourish-ed_. For a fair maiden was blamed with wrong, and slandered, for which cause she was condemned to be burned in that place; and as the fire began to burn about her, she made her prayers to our Lord that, as truly as she was not guilty, he would by his merciful grace help her, and make it known to all men. And when she had thus said she entered into the fire, and immediately the fire was extinguished, and the fagots that were burning became red rose-bushes, and those that were not kindled became white rose-bushes, full of roses; and these were the first rose-trees and roses, both white and red, that ever any man saw. And thus was this maiden saved by the grace of God; and therefore is that field called the field that God flourished, for it was full of roses.

Then Esther turned to another place which had struck her eye, and read--

OF THE ROCKS OF ADAMANT.

In that island are ships without nails of iron or brass, on account of the rocks of adamant (loadstones). For they are all abundant thereabout in that sea, that it is marvellous to speak of; and if a ship passed there that had either iron bands or iron nails, it would perish; for the adamant, by its nature, draws iron to it, and so it would draw it to the ship, because of the iron, that it should never depart from it.

“That,” cried Bob Edmerton, “was what happened to Sindbad.”

“Oh, no; not to Sindbad!” said all the others.

Uncle Fritz confessed that he thought it was to Sindbad. This was a great triumph for the little troop. “To think,” said Tom Rising, “that we should bowl out Uncle Fritz on the ‘Arabian Nights’! I thought he knew the ‘Arabian Nights’ by heart.” So the “Arabian Nights” (in Lane’s version) was sent for, and Tom Rising read aloud from the story of “The Third Royal Mendicant.”

“A royal mendicant,” said Uncle Fritz, “is what was called a ‘calendar,’ when I was a boy.”

THE STORY OF THE THIRD ROYAL MENDICANT.

So he went aloft, and when he had come down he said to the captain, “I saw, on my right hand, fish floating upon the surface of the water, and, looking towards the midst of the sea, I perceived something looming in the distance,--sometimes black and sometimes white.”

When the captain heard this report of the watch, he threw his turban on the deck, and plucked his beard, and said to those who were with him, “Receive warning of our destruction, which will befall all of us: not one will escape.” So saying, he began to weep; and all of us, in like manner, bewailed our lot. I desired him to inform us of that which the watch had seen. The watch said, “To-morrow we shall arrive at a mountain of black stone, called loadstone: the current is now bearing us violently toward it, and the ship will fall in pieces; for God hath given to the loadstone a secret property, by virtue of which everything of iron is attracted toward it. On that mountain is such a quantity of iron as no one knoweth but God, whose name be exalted! for from times of old great numbers of ships have been destroyed by the influence of that mountain.”

On the following morning we drew near to the mountain; the current carried us toward it with violence, and when the ships were almost close to it, they fell asunder, and all the nails, and everything else that was of iron, flew from them toward the loadstone. It was near the close of the day when the ship fell in pieces. Some of us were drowned, and some escaped; but the greater number were drowned, and of those who saved their lives, none knew what became of the others, so stupefied were they by the waves and the boisterous wind.

After they had looked up the other passages, which are somewhat like this, in the Fifth Voyage of Sindbad the Sailor, they came back to Sir John Mandeville. They found the story of the rich man Gathenabes, and his false Paradise, the same that is told of the King of the Assassins. This was in the mysterious land of Prester John. They found the happy story of the “Island of Bragman,” which some men call the Land of Faith. Then they found the description of the Terrestrial Paradise, which poor Mandeville could not reach from the East Indies, better than poor Columbus could from the West.[4] They found about the country where the gentleman has such long nails that he may take nothing, nor handle anything.

Then they found--and this was a great relief to Sybil--that after all these travels, Sir John returned to Rome, and “was absolved of all that lay in my conscience of many grievous points.” For notwithstanding Uncle Fritz’s excuses for Sir John, Sybil was sadly afraid that he needed absolution for the master sin of lying; and if he ever repented of it, Sybil was glad.

Before she laid down the book she read one extract more.

OF THE GREAT CHAN OF CATHAY.

In this city (Caydon) is the seat of the Great chan,[5] in a very great palace, the fairest of the world, the walls of which are in circuit more than two miles; and within the walls it is all full of other palaces. And in the garden of the great palace there is a great hill, upon which is another palace, the fairest and richest that any man may devise. And all about the palace and the hill are many trees bearing divers fruits. And all about that hill are great and deep ditches, and beside them are great fish-ponds on both sides; and there is a very fair bridge to pass over the ditches. And in these fish-ponds are an extraordinary number of wild geese and ganders, and wild ducks and swans and herons. And all about these ditches and fish-ponds is the great garden, full of wild beasts, so that when the Great chan will have any sport, to take any of the wild beasts or the fowls, he will cause them to be driven, and take them at the windows, without going out of his chamber. Within the palace, in the hall, there are twenty-four pillars of fine gold; and all the walls are covered within with red skins of animals called panthers, fair beasts and well-smelling; so that for the sweet odor of the skins, no evil air may enter into the palace.

The skins are as red as blood, and shine so bright against the sun that a man may scarcely look at them. And many people worship the beasts when they meet them first in a morning, for their great virtue and for the good smell that they have; and the skins they value more than if they were plates of fine gold.

And in the middle of the palace is the mountour[6] of the Great chan, all wrought of gold and of precious stones and of great pearls; and at the four corners are four serpents of gold; and all about there are made large nets of silk and gold, and great pearls hanging all about it. And under the mountour are conduits of beverage that they drink in the emperor’s court. And beside the conduits are many vessels of gold, with which they that are of the household drink at the conduit. The hall of the palace is full nobly arrayed, and full marvellously attired on all parts in all things that men apparel any hall with.

And first, at the head of the hall, is the emperor’s throne, very high, where he sits at meat. It is of fine precious stones, bordered all about with purified gold and precious stones and great pearls. And the steps up to the table are of precious stones, mixed with gold. And at the left side of the emperor’s seat is the seat of his first wife, one step lower than the emperor; and it is of jasper bordered with gold, and the seat of his second wife is lower than his first wife, and is also of jasper bordered with gold, as that other is. And the seat of the third wife is still lower by a step than the second wife’s, for he has always three wives with him, wherever he is. And after his wives, on the same side, sit the ladies of his lineage, still lower, according to their ranks. And all those that are married have a counterfeit, made like a man’s foot, upon their heads, a cubit long, all wrought with great, fine, and orient pearls, and above made with peacock’s feathers, and of other shining feathers; and that stands upon their heads like a crest, in token that they are under man’s foot, and under subjection of man. But the other ladies, that are unmarried, have none such. And after, at the right side of the emperor, first sits his eldest son, who shall reign after him, one step lower than the emperor, in such manner of seats as do the empresses; and after him, other great lords of his lineage, each of them a step lower than the other, according to their rank. The emperor has his table alone by himself, and each of his wives has also her table by herself. And his eldest son, and the other lords also, and the ladies, and all that sit with the emperor, have very rich tables, alone by themselves. And under the emperor’s table sit four clerks, who write all that the emperor says, be it good or evil; for all that he says must be held good; for he may not change his word nor revoke it.

At great feasts men bring, before the emperor’s table, great tables of gold, and thereon are peacocks of gold, and many other kinds of different fowls, all of gold, and richly wrought and enamelled; and they make them dance and sing, clapping their wings together, and making great noise; and whether it be by craft or by necromancy I know not, but it is a goodly sight to behold. But I have the less marvel because they are the most skilful men in the world in all sciences and in all crafts; for in subtilty, malice, and forethought they surpass all men under heaven; and, therefore, they say themselves that they see with two eyes, and Christians see with but one, because they are more subtle than they....

Nevertheless the truth is this,--that Tartars, and they that dwell in Greater Asia, came of Cham, but the emperor of Cathay was called not Cham, but Chan; and I shall tell you how. It is but little more than eight score years since all Tartary was in subjection and servage to other nations about; for they were but herdsmen, and did nothing but keep beasts, and lead them to pastures. But among them they had seven principal nations that were sovereigns of them all, of which the first nation or lineage was called Tartar; and that is the most noble and the most praised. The second lineage is called Tanghot; the third, Eurache; the fourth, Valair; the fifth, Semoche; the sixth, Megly; the seventh, Coboghe. Now it befell that of the first lineage succeeded an old worthy man, and was not rich, who was called Changuys. This man lay one night in bed, and he saw in a vision that there came before him a knight, armed all in white, and he sat upon a white horse, and said to him, “Chan, sleepest thou? The immortal God hath sent me to thee; and it is his will that thou go to the seven lineages, and say to them that thou shalt be their emperor; for thou shalt conquer the lands and the countries that are about; and they that march upon you shall be under your subjection, as you have been under theirs; for that is God’s immortal will.”

Changuys arose, and went to the seven lineages and told them what the white knight had said. And they scorned him, and said that he was a fool; and so he departed from them, all ashamed. And the night following, this white knight came to the seven lineages and commanded them, on behalf of the immortal God, that they should make this Changuys their emperor, and they should be out of subjection, and they should hold all other regions about them in servage, as they had been to them before. And next day they chose him to be their emperor, and set him upon a black chest, and after that lifted him up with great solemnity, and set him in a chair of gold, and did him all manner of reverence; and they called him Chan, as the white knight called him. And when he was thus chosen, he would make trial if he must trust in them or not, and whether they would be obedient to him; and then he made many statutes and ordinances, that they call Ysya Chan.

The first statute was, that they should believe in and obey immortal God, who is almighty, and who would cast them out of servage; and they should at all times call to him for help in time of need. The second statute was that all manner of men that might bear arms should be numbered, and to every ten should be a master, and to every hundred a master, and to every thousand a master, and to every ten thousand a master. After, he commanded the principals of the seven lineages to leave and forsake all they had in goods and heritage, and from thenceforth to be satisfied with what he would give them of his grace. And they did so immediately. After this he commanded the principals of the seven lineages, that each should bring his eldest son before him, and with their own hands smite off their heads without delay. And immediately his command was performed.

And when the Chan saw that they made no obstacle to perform his commandment, then he thought that he might well trust in them; and he commanded them presently to make them ready, and to follow his banner. And after this, the Chan put in subjection all the lands about him. Afterwards it befel on a day, that the Chan rode with a few companies to behold the strength of the country that he had won, and a great multitude of his enemies met with him; and to give good example of bravery to his people, he was the first that fought, and rushed into the midst of his enemies, and there was thrown from his horse, and his horse slain. And when his people saw him on the earth, they were all discouraged, and thought he had been dead, and fled every one; and their enemies pursued them, but they knew not that the emperor was there. And when they were returned from the pursuit, they sought the woods, if any of them had been hid in them; and many they found and slew.

So it happened that as they went searching toward the place where the emperor was, they saw an owl sitting on a tree above him; and then they said amongst them that there was no man there, because they saw the bird there, and so they went their way; and thus the emperor escaped death. And then he went secretly by night, till he came to his people, who were very glad of his coming, and gave great thanks to immortal God, and to that bird by which their lord was saved; and, therefore, above all fowls of the world, they worship the owl; and when they have any of its feathers, they keep them full preciously instead of relics, and bear them upon their heads with great reverence; and they hold themselves blessed, and safe from all perils, while they have these feathers on them, and therefore they bear them upon their heads. After all this the Chan assembled his people, and went against those who had assailed him before, and destroyed them, and put them in subjection and servage.

At this moment in the reading supper was announced; but Clem begged them to wait a minute, while he read why Sir John Mandeville did not tell about Paradise.

Blanche said that there was no need of explaining that; but Clem persevered.

“Of Paradise I cannot speak properly, for I was not there.”

“That,” said Horace, “is like Cousin: ‘I say nothing of Buddhism, because I know nothing about it.’”

“If only everybody would be as thoughtful!” said Uncle Fritz. And Clem continued, though he was already losing his audience:--

“It is far beyond, and I repent not going there, but I was not worthy.” “I should think not,” interrupted Blanche. “But as I have heard say of wise men beyond, I shall tell you with good-will. Terrestrial Paradise, as wise men say, is the highest place of the earth, and it is so high that it nearly touches the circle of the moon there, as the moon makes her turn. For it is so high that the flood of Noah might not come to it that would have covered all the earth of the world all about, and above and beneath, except Paradise. And this Paradise is inclosed all about with a wall, and men know not whereof it is; for the wall is covered all over with moss, as it seems, and it seems not that the wall is natural stone. And that wall stretches from the south to the north; and it has but one entry, which is closed with burning fire, so that no man that is mortal dare enter.”

“So they were well rid of Mandeville,” said Blanche, laughing; and she and Clem went in to their supper.